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That's called a gantry, I'm sure it is used to lift the end of the bridge the conveyor is on. This allows for the transition of heights of decks of different ships and tidal changes, too. It hinges on the dock end.

here is the New York, built of iron in 1875 at Wilmington, Delaware, by Harlan & Hollingsworth for Charles Morgan's Morgan Steamship Company. She measured 283 feet in length, powered by the typical triple-expansion steam engine of the day. She was broken up in 1923. Charles Morgan instituted the first steamship line on the American East Coast in 1834. By the time of Morgan's death in 1877, he had amassed quite a transportation empire primarily based on Southern railroads, but of which the steamship company was a prime component. His heirs sold their holdings to C. P. Huntington, who merged them into the Southern Pacific in 1888, but the steamship operation remained known as the Morgan Line until wound up in 1941.

Since Morgan operated a service between Havana and New Orleans at the time this photograph was taken, I suspect the contents of the barrels are either molasses or its potent by-product, rum.

The hoist mentioned below, with all the pulleys, is not for handling cargo. The boom on the ship, with its base on the deck-house and its attendant lines rigged to the mast is doing that. Ships of this era were fully capable of loading and unloading themselves in even the most undeveloped port.

The hoist raises and lowers the outboard ends of two aprons fixed to the pier. Thus the aprons (ramps) could be adjusted to any deck height or tidal condition.

Only the apron with the moving belt is in use, and the power seems to be a mystery. A giant hamster-wheel out of view, perhaps. The belt does seem to be valuable enough to justify a long canvas cover to protect it from the weather when not in use.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.